


I'm the Greatest Good You Are Ever Gonna Get!

by mountainsbeyondmountains



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 09:51:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10331966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountainsbeyondmountains/pseuds/mountainsbeyondmountains
Summary: All the coffee shop tropes meet... superheroes?





	

"Medium coffee, milk, no sugar, two flavor shots of hazelnut."

He staggers in the coffee shop and slouches at the counter, half an hour before closing. No one else gets coffee at this hour. Sansa has tried to tell her boss Baelish countless times that it's absurd to stay open til eleven. But now here _he's_ here- and all she can think is he's shorter than she expected. But all the photographs of him are few and far between, always grainy action shots of a noir silhouette, so she doesn't have much to go on.

He's all in black- same as always. And he's wearing the mask that exposes his eyes. Grey. Weary.

Sansa doesn't do anything stupid like shriek or call the police or ask for his autograph. Maybe once she would have, but she's grown awfully jaded in the last few years. The only sign that this isn't a regular customer is the slight shaking of her hands as she prepares the coffee. Medium, milk, no sugar, two flavor shots of hazelnut. 

The sharpie's already in her hand when she realizes she doesn't know his name. Of course she doesn't. What would the point of the mask be otherwise? So she turns to him and smiles radiantly, the practiced p _lease tip, student debt is suffocating me_ smile. "Name?" she asks sweetly, though there's no point.

"You know," he grumbles. Sansa shrugs. No one could say she hadn't tried. So she scribbles the name that's slapped across every headline: Azor Azhai. 

***

Why does he come back? He's already kicking himself because it's  _stupid_ to lurk around the same place twice. Remember what happened to Ygritte? But he's in the neighborhood, and could use some caffeine, and he's always been a sucker for a redhead. 

"Medium coffee, milk, no sugar, two flavor shots of hazelnut."

With a wry smile, she says, "No sugar? Working hard to make sure you can keep fitting in that suit, huh?" 

He thinks he likes that she's not scared of him. She asks again, just like last time, "Name?" His only reply is a rusty attempt at a smile.

***

It's useless to peer through the door each night into the city lit up by streetlights, right around closing, just to make sure he won't stop by. And it's useless to read every news item that even comes close to mentioning him. He probably has a whole slew of coffee shops he frequents as he...  _defends the city from danger,_ or whatever he does. The watcher of the night, a light in the darkness. Whatever. It's ambiguous. 

It's useless to worry about him.

***

It's useless to alter the routine of his morning jog- except it's not really a morning jog, is it, because his nocturnal activities cause him to sleep til one- so that he passes the coffee shop. And it's even more useless to slow down, and look at the window as he runs by, just to glimpse her. She smiles brilliantly at _every_ customer. There's nothing special about him (except the seeing in animals' minds and imperviousness to fire and super strength). 

He never goes in. He always feels vulnerable without the mask. More awkward. And he's hardly very suave with the mask on, so it's safer to keep a barrier between them. He would hate to disappoint her. 

***

"Name?"

He evades the answer- she knows who wins this game anyway- by saying, "You're Sansa, right?"

She flashes the nametag at him. "Glad to know the local superhero knows how to read."

"And what are you drinking?" He gestures to her paper cup, rimmed with lipstick. 

"Why do you want to know?" 

"Well, sometimes you seem kind of judgemental about what  _I_ drink. So I feel it's a fair question."

Sansa has to concede that yes, he has a point. Her quips about his beverage aren't personal. She just has to break the ice somehow, and the coffee is all she really knows about him. Which is more than most can say, but still. So she sees this as an opening. Perhaps not the key to his vulnerable, angsty, scarred superhero heart. But perhaps a bobby pin, to pick the lock. 

Not that Sansa cares about his heart. 

Anyway, she replies, "Lemon flavored black tea. Iced." She waits for his reaction with... butterflies? No, she gave those pesky fluttering fuckers alcohol poisoning a long time ago. And then she switched to lemon flavored black tea. Iced.

"Cold and bitter. Delightful," he jokes. "Is it a perk of the job? Free caffeine?"

"No. My boss is a stingy little bastard. I steal it."

"That's illegal."

Sansa leans across the counter, close enough to see the tail end of a scar marring his cheek that emerges from beneath the edge of his mask. She challenges him, "What are you going to do? Bring me to justice?"

***

She's on edge that night. He's never seen Sansa like this before. Spilling things, swearing worse than half the villains he faces, braiding and rebraiding her hair as a nervous tic. She's usually so graceful. It puts  _him_ on edge. He's come to rely on her serenity and lightheartedness and ability to make him forget, at least for the time it takes for him to finish his coffee. He used to down it quickly. Lately he finds himself pausing to enjoy it.  

"What's wrong?" he asks. 

"Nothing."

"I know you usually lie to me, but that kind isn't going to earn you any tips."

"You never tip," she says, and then he notices the tears dripping down her face, landing in his coffee.  _Stupidstupidstupidstupid,_ could he be more stupid? 

"Shit, Sansa, I'm sorry." Should he reach out a hand? Pat her shoulder? He settles on handing her a napkin. She blots her eyes with it, then stares down.

"Ruined my make up." 

"You still look beautiful," he blurts out. Turns out he can get more stupid. Good to know. But she's too distracted by whatever is causing her grief to notice his spectacularly awkward attempt at a compliment. 

"It's my boss," she quickly vents, not quite looking at him, staring at the night behind him. "He doesn't quite seem to get the meaning of the word  _no._ And it's also the anniversary of when my dog got hit by a car, and so I'm really emotional, and-"

The mention of her pervert boss is infuriating, but pursuing it won't get her to stop crying. Gently, he says, "You had a dog?"

"A Northern Inuit. Her name was Lady. I had her since I was twelve, and she was there for a lot."

"I have a Northern Inuit, too!" he exclaims. Sansa gapes at him. "He's an albino. His name is Ghost."

Sansa clearly absorbs this, then breaks out in a delighted grin. "I miss Lady so much- I'd love to meet Ghost sometime." Then he shifts uncomfortably, tips back his cup even though the coffee's gone cold. Sansa realizes, with a different kind of sadness than before, "That would be impossible, wouldn't it?" 

***

Sansa's head is in the stratosphere as she tries to think of a way to thank him. Call it internal wiles, but she just knows the recent assault on Baelish is  _his_ work. Baelish was firebreathing mad. "What kind of creepleaves dog shit on a person's pillow?" 

What kind of creep harasses his female employees? 

Then Sansa sees, through the window, between the customers of the mid afternoon rush, what could almost be the ghost of Lady. More hulking though, and with pale moon colored fur.  _Ghost._ Sansa cranes her neck to see the owner, but he's already gone. 

Later that night, all her wiles seem to have deserted her. What the hell? She can think of nothing to say to him. He's just sitting there, more downcast than even that first night, not even drinking his coffee. Maybe this would be easier if she knew his name. It would be a place to begin. But what she starts the regular routine, begins the syllable of "Name?", he whispers, "I killed a man tonight. A man I admired."

And maybe Sansa doesn't hug him in comfort because she's afraid of getting of getting blood on her uniform. Or maybe for the same reason she didn't run out in the street and chase him earlier that day: he scares her, just a little. But he doesn't need to know that, so she flippantly replies, "Okay, I already know you don't take sugar in your coffee, remember? No need to further prove yourself as a badass."

Thank God he laughs. 

***

He tells himself what he always tells himself, that it's stupid to depend on her, it's stupid to turn up here expecting... expecting what? He doesn't know, he just knows he needs it. And it's especially stupid tonight. How can he know for certain the trail is cold? They could be following him there right now. He might be throwing Sansa to the wolves. But still he enters the coffee shop. He pushes the door open with his shoulder, because his hands are currently holding the stab wounds, and he doesn't want to get blood on the glass for Sansa to clean later. 

She gasps. "Oh my God, what happened?"

"Paper cut," he wheezes out before collapsing to the floor. She drags him behind the counter, where he lays on his back. "Do you know anything about stab wounds?" he asks her. 

"Fuck, no, I don't! I'm studying journalism, not pre med!" She grabs the first aid kit, and rips open his already-torn shirt. "Oh, god," she whispers. "Seven times?" 

While she's making hasty bandages from gauze and medical tape, he grunts, "One for each of them."

"You need to go to a doctor," she says. 

He shakes his head. "I'll be fine. The guys who did this- they'll check local hospitals. And then there are all sorts of nasty complications. Besides, healing abilities. I just need to rest for the night. Take it easy for a week or two."

"Just go after jaywalkers and litterers," she almost jokes. "You promise you'll be all right?"

"I promise." 

Her fingers flutter as she extends her hand towards his mask, and he thinks he might let her, when the bell at the door jingles too merrily for the situation. "Shit," Sansa whispers. "Stay here. Stay quiet." She wipes her hands on her skirt and says peppily to the customer, "What'll it be?" She's so cool that they could never discern there's a man whose identity the whole city wants to know, who half the city wants dead, possibly bleeding to death beside her. She makes the order and sends the customer off quicker than Jon ever thought possible. Maybe she has superpowers after all. 

"Sansa," he mumbles after the shop is quiet again and Sansa is hyperventilating with relief, hand on her heart, knuckles white gripping the counter. 

"What is it?"

"Sansa, I could see up your skirt just then. Sorry."

She swoops down. "All right, you definitely owe me after that one," she says. She takes a breath, then tears off the mask. 

 


End file.
